A Lead Odyssey

Why is this here..

A Lead Odyssey is about my hobby, collecting, painting and playing with toy soldiers. It will cover the various rulesets I use, the figures I am painting (very slowly), and some games. Thanks to Harry Pearson for the Achtung Schweinehundreference. The uniform jacket in the picture was adapted from a safari suit, the weapon is a wooden sub-machine gun made by me and my dad. Cool eh?

I play a range of scales, rules and periods.. scales are anything from 6mm, through 15mm to 28mm for little men, but I also use 1/1200 for Napoleonic Naval, and 1/3000 for Pre-Dreadnought period Naval.

My tastes are eclectic, but I have avoided most 'Fantasy' Games for a few years, as I couldn't get into the usual suspects for Fantasy Battles, and didn't have a decent group to play role-playing style games.

Sunday, 24 September 2017

Another fun day up at Kirriemuir, Dale had set up a straightforward encounter battle over control of a stretch of road between two chateaus. Each side was three infantry brigades, a cavalry brigade and an artillery battery.

Charles and Dale discuss the finer points of the rules...

My opponent was to be Charles, and we had a really fun game. I was delighted to have a heavy brigade of cavalry attached to the three infantry brigades, that included the Scots Greys,

First British Dragoon regiment goes in.. with little success

True to form, after the other British Dragoons had been seen off, (ok, retreated and reformed), the Greys then smashed through not one but two French Dragoon regiments in a series of charges, much to my amusement, and to Charles' chagrin.

The first French Dragoon regiment is shattered by the Greys, and is pulling back to reform on the left,, as the Grey horses get stuck into the second regiment.

This however was pretty much a sideshow, and on the other flank (my left) - the need to try and press home an attack against a fortified chateau costs me dearly. On the whole, the game was huge fun and a gentleman's draw.

British lines against fortified positions.. not good.

I do confess to feeling just a little sorry for Charles though; in GdB, each turn you roll for initiative using 2d6, I managed to win the initiative in virtually every turn after turn 4 or so, which didn't help him much.

Fasands of 'em

Another fun day, looking forward to Skelp and Targe. My only regret is that my good wargaming mate John is arriving from Australia the evening of Skelp, and I would have liked to have taken him up there.

Wednesday, 30 August 2017

I'm really not sure whether Nephew no 1 gets this whole wargamer thing; oh sure, he plays, he has a drawer full of tanks, but the other day I caught him throwing out the remains of the Flames of War - Open Fire box.. including a few infantry, some Pak 40 and even 3 Stug III.

Throwing out!

THROWING OUT!!!

What kind of wargamer actually throws things out? I mean, next thing he will be saying he doesn't need things, and then not buying new stuff. It's the thin edge of the wedge, the end of civilisation as we know it, unheard of, unthinkable. I just shake my head in wonder,

So naturally; despite the fact that in Oz, I have WW2 aplenty in 6mm and 1/72 or 20mm, and here I have been building forces in 28mm, I had to rescue those poor unloved figures & models. The Stugs had already had a basic paint job, but I thought that I might tart them up a bit. So - a lick of paint and accessories later..

Pretty happy with how these look, though looking at the pictures, I realise I need to finish the tracks, and add mud. But not too bad for some poor neglected models due for disposal...

A lot of fun, and in the car I discussed whether the nephew and I could see ourselves collecting a retinue for the game.

At first I was thinking 'Dark Ages' using Gripping Beast, then potentially, Norman period using the Conquest Games plastics. He however, is keen to do something Scottish around 1300 for the Wars of Independence. If we were to look at the Fireforge plastics, then they could do for 1300.

Ok, the germination of an idea.. and incidentally, when I looked through the various sprues lurking around the place, I had acquired a single sprue of Fireforge Sergeants some time ago, that on close inspection, are ideal, in period and very nice models with tons of variety. But the 'Fierce Foot' from the Scottish list are a little more tricky. I looked at the Frostgrave Barbarians... too hairy. So I then thought about using Gripping Beast Vikings as Islesmen.

Here's how they turned out. Basing I am still not decided on. The pictures are also somewhat washed out in artificial light.

Friday, 4 August 2017

I had an hour or so the other day, and thought I should whack some paint on the Maus. It's not even as if it fits with any of my other stuff, but I do have a nephew who is a bit of a Panzer nut, so he may get it.

Still a bit to do on this one, I am going to have a good play with weathering etc. But here's how it look after initial mask and airbrush, decals, some chipping and some initial weathering.

Saturday, 29 July 2017

So I was down in the local model shop, and they had Zvezda 1/100 (15mm) in stock.. and there was this model staring at me... well.. it would be rude not to? And I built a 15mm Sherman for my nephew...

Ok, so I just bought it to play with late war colour schemes. It's massive. Even in 15mm it's a big model.

And I have to congratulate Zvezda, it's fantastic design and model making. Admittedly it is a fairly simple shape, but it just fits!

For anyone who tried to put together 1960's Airfix designs, the engineering tolerances and mold quality are outstanding - hat's off to Zvezda, I have a number of their figures and models, and they are outstanding. To be fair, the very latest Airfix kits are pretty impressive.

Wednesday, 21 June 2017

Not Hamlet, but the additional bits and pieces I wanted to add to the Danish Cold War battlegroup.

I again went back to QRF, and added some dismounted TOW, some mortars, some 'Blowpipe' missiles, which double as 'Hamlet', the Danish version of 'Redeye', additional Landrovers and Unimogs for transport, plus the very charming Walker Bulldog M41 for reconnaissance.

So here are the reinforcements. I still have air assets in the form of a Tornado, a Phantom and a F16 to finish, but it seems like overegging the pudding.

Landrovers for the Redeye Teams

TOW armed Lynx

The QRF Lynx is a much later model, so I had a lot of hacking to do around the exhaust nozzles. Not an easy job.

Dismounted TOW in front, Hamlet (Redeye) SAM in the second row.

Unimog tows for mortars

Walker Bulldogs & Mortars

Reinforcements

The whole battlegroup

As always, a very simple paint job. My new airbrush got a work out, (yes, I cracked - ordered a new one on the Friday I broke the old one, it arrived on Saturday, thanks to Amazon Prime).

Green for vehicles is sprayed XF51 Tamiya Olive Drab over the black undercoat, and the 'Grey' is Vallejo German Grey. Infantry uniforms are sprayed Vallejo Russian Uniform - webbing is Vallejo Grey Green. I used Vallejo Military Green for some equipment (Mortars and 'Hamlet' launchers). Washes are by GW, 'brown' & 'black' (Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade... or whatever they are called these days)

Camo netting is old stocking with white glue and tea leaves.

And right.. that's it. No more to add. Seriously, I am calling this Battlegroup done.

Disclaimer

In this Blog I make mention of products from a number of companies. I have no connection with any of these companies, and no infringement of copyright or trademarks is intended. Where possible, links are provided to the vendor/manufacturer concerned. If you have any concerns, please contact me to have the content removed.